The St. Therese Health Centre in St. Paul will receive a $3.5 million upgrade to its emergency department as part of a $50 million investment over the next three years to modernize rural health care facilities.
Speaking to the spring convention of the Rural Municipalities Association this morning, Premier Jason Kenney said the multi-million dollar investment in health care in communities across the province is new money through the Rural Health Facilities Revitalization Fund. He said his government is making historic investments and policy decisions to support vital economic growth and also critical public services in rural communities.
"This is a fund that will be invested in dozens of projects up and down the province," he said providing some examples of the projects, where he referenced the upgrade for the St. Paul facility.
"Sometimes I've heard the view out there that Alberta's government has under-invested in or not responded to the needs or priorities of rural Alberta, but I believe the opposite is true. This government has a strong and outspoken rural caucus that is represented in our cabinet and in the government caucus and they speak every single day for the need for critical investments in rural services and infrastructure, recognizing that often things are more expensive to deliver in rural areas, and remote areas in particular."
In addressing rural municipal administrators and elected officials across the province during the online conference, Kenney said the government has launched a bold recovery plan with an eye on creating tens of thousands of jobs in the province and rural Alberta will benefit from the Province's investment in infrastructure and economic renewal.
"The wealth generated in Alberta, through our natural resources for example, comes from rural regions of the province. We need vital rural communities," he said. "I dream of a province where rural communities don't struggle with maintaining population but where the population continues to grow, where young families settle in rural communities because they can have a bright future."
Kenney said the $81 million announced last year to support physician recruitment and retention in rural Alberta, recognizes there has always been more of a challenge to attract doctors to rural communities right across the country.
"That's for about 800 rural physicians, so that averages out to about $100,000 in additional compensation for each rural physician in Alberta. As part of that package, we removed the $60,000 cap on rural and the remote northern incentive under Alberta Health Care compensation for doctors. That has set us up with the strongest financial incentives in Canada bar none for recruitment and retention of rural docs."
The Premier said the province faced a collapse of one-quarter of the government's revenue through the last year and the projected $18 billion deficit this year means the tough times are not over. Even so, he said, his government is making a "deliberate decision" to invest in rural economic development and public services. He said there are signs of "real growth" returning to the economy including an agricultural sector that is seeing some strong commodity prices and a forestry industry that performed well through the last year. An increase in oil prices in recent weeks, also lends itself to optimism for the months ahead, he said.
"We are set for a turnaround year in Alberta and God knows we deserve it, we need one after what's happened to this province for the last four or five years."
